I usually buy some toiletries, meat, chicken, milk ($1.79/gallon!!), bread, some produce, etc. We also bought many electronic items there as they are a good deal and stand behind their products. It always seems to be an expensive trip, but I don’t have to buy the items as often. It seems as if most prices are equal to buying the items at another grocery store with a coupon. I also occasionally find good deals on clothes.

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Money Saving Mom here: You can use as many Amazon.com gift cards in one transaction as you’d like. So just save up your Swagbucks and cash them in on Amazon gift cards and keep hanging onto them until you have enough collected to make the purchase.

I substitute sucanant into any and all recipes that would call for regular or brown sugar (except when I want to use honey, which I do often), so no specific recipes to share for that.

But for carob, we have one particularly yummy smoothie recipe that I think you might enjoy! You can either do as the recipe says and use seeds and water for your “milk” base, or you can just use some milk (and it’s fine watered down a bit, too). I’m also linking to my version of a peanut butter banana smoothie, which I like to add a little carob to. The recipes are similar, but a bit different and we love them both. Enjoy!

http://www.keeperofthehome.org/2007/12/smoothie-of-the-morning-carob-delight.html

http://www.keeperofthehome.org/2009/04/a-nourished-start-peanut-butter-smoothies-and-baked-oatmeal.html

The organic jasmine white rice is $2.49/lb at the health food store in bulk, but when we are going to see my sister we have her buy it from Trader Joe’s where it comes in a 2lb bag for $3.99 ($1.99/lb) We have her buy about 5 bags at a time and store it in the fridge.

We also love to buy spices in the bulk bins at the healthfood store. It’s great to be able to buy just the amount we need if it is a spice we don’t often use.
I love that your bulk spices appear to have been packed in small containers with lids. Our stores just have plastic bags and it’s not the most convenient thing.

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Money Saving Mom here: Thanks for letting me know! I discovered it was stuck in the spam catcher since there were so many links in the comment.

Thank you very much!

We store our bulk food purchases in food grade plastic pails that we get from bakeries (Walmart, IGA, FoodLion). Sometimes I can get them for free just by asking nicely or in the case of Walmart, ours sells them complete with lid for $1.

For pails that I’m going to be wanting to get into quite often I’ve purchased Gamma lids. A bit expensive but makes getting into the pails very easy.

And for bulk food that I’m buying for long-term storage, I put large mylar bags inside the plastic pails before filling and then I seal the mylar bag before putting the lid on the pail.

How do you plan to store yours?

I have heard of people buying large plastic tubs..just wondering, where and and what is safe.

We also set aside cash for each week for milk and produce purchases. We put each weeks cash in a separate envelope labeled with the date. Any leftover cash goes to the next week’s envelope.

I am currently in the middle of a rough pregnancy and having everything on hand has been a real life saver. DH runs by the supermarket once a week on his way home from work to pick up milk and produce. NO GROCERY STORE FOR ME! Also, I think we are eating healthier meals. It has taken some self control but the money that we have saved has been a real encouragement.

We are halfway through our quarter now. So far, it appears that we have shaved $200 a month off of our monthly grocery budget.